Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Japan

So I had these fantasies that I would go native in Africa. Learn to speak Swahili, have a little concrete hut for a house, live out my days with a kerosene stove, a mosquito net, and some Safari beer in this exhilarating, dark, beautiful place.

And then I got to Japan.

You know what I like? 400 thread count sheets. Also drinking water from the tap. Also not being asked to lend someone $50,000 for a land rover every time I got out with them for a beer. Also, being able to drink something other than beer.

Japan is adorable - I've not yet seen the love hotels and creepy porn, and as it is snowing out and I'm just about adventure-ed out, I may not. Who cares? As long as I can get a massage in my room, I am feeling good about life.

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Mzungu observations

Got back yesterday from two days spent in Eloui, a Maasai village up on this mountainside near Kenya. Mindbogglingly beautiful, and a way of life at once intimidatingly difficult and alluring. You get used to sights like four-year-olds industriously washing remnants of cow blood out of tin cups with dirt and dung so they can drink some tea. The second night I slept in the Orpul, which is a sort of Maasai boy's club-cum-field hospital. Ate all sorts of raw goat parts, drank tea made of various roots mixed with goat meat and fat, and slept on a bower of green branches under the stars, which is not as comfortable as you might think. Was entranced by all of it, but sure was ready for a shower, a nap and a beer, in that order, when I got back to Arusha.